What to Put on Dry Scabbard Leather?

[silverfoxdj]

Dr Hess Udder ointment if you can find it

You can buy direct.. h ttp://drhess.com/

 

[BirdCity]

In my opinion, the absolute best thing to put on leather if you plan on preserving it a long time is absolutely nothing.

This is an old debate and the general consensus in the museum community is that the products for leather preservation all seem to do more harm than good. The Smithsonian museum went threw this debate and many items were harmed during the period when they thought a leather condition would help with preservation.

If the item is something you want to use, not overly valuable, and you don't care too much about preservation than Pickards or the other suggestions above would be fine for fixing your problem for the short term.

Of course, this is simply my opinion, but if it's a valuable historical leather item than it's best to just keep it properly stored and not touch it with any products or oils.

Cheers,
-Steve

Yep...this.

Any leather treatments you can buy are intended to lubricate leather that is being used. In stored/displayed/"retired" leather, the only thing these treatments will do is oxidize and cross-polymerize, leaving your leather even stiffer, and more prone to cracking.

Use leather treatments on working leather. If this is a collectable item, do nothing other than keep it in a good environment (ie., out of the sun, not too hot or too cold, not damp enough to promote mould, etc.).

 

[37patt]

The Canadian Conservation Institute and the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute are two very good sites to investigate for the preservation of artifacts. If you dig deep enough there are some telling stories on lotions etc on old leather and the damage caused by them.

Remember that a pair of army boots are expendable, when they wear out, rot or fall apart by being wet all the time you can get a new pair. 100+ year old items are not quite that easy.

 

[cantom]

Bump due to good info.